Using the case of the Hong Kong Polytechnic (HKP), this paper examines academic drift in colonial settings. The HKP, like polytechnics in the UK, was supposedly a service sector institution. Under the binary system in the UK, schools in the service division were governed by the state educational bureaucracy, while the universities - the autonomous sector - were under the University Grants Committee (UGC). When the HKP was being founded, however, it became an institution under the UGC of Hong Kong. This article argues that the HKP could cross the binary line because a polytechnic unsubordinated to the local colonial state would be more serviceable to external agents' interests. This finding suggests that researchers of academic drift - who have hitherto studied exclusively sovereign nations and the impacts of internal factors - should also examine the cases in dependent territories as well as the effects of external influences on such shifts.
[Copyright of History of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0046760X.2014.930185]

This article looks historically at the 'Regionalisation' of higher education in the United States and East Asia. First, it recounts the proliferation of regional networks in American higher education in the 1950s and 1960s, with a focus on the international dimensions of these networks. Then, it revisits a major conference on 'University Cooperation and Asian Development', hosted by the University of Hong Kong in 1966. Noting that domestic university collaborations often paved the way for subsequent international networks, the article situates both American and Asian networks in their broader geopolitical context to show the relationship between higher education, regional development and the pursuit of soft power.
[Copyright of Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2013.786858]

Using the case of Chinese schools in post-Second World War Hong Kong, this paper explores the unintended consequences of an incomplete hegemonic project. After World War II, anti-imperialist pressures and rising educational demands in the local setting propelled the colonial authorities to be more active in providing and funding Chinese schools. This development created a considerable number of vernacular institutions that were either directly state-run or generously government-financed. Nevertheless, this concession was circumscribed because the regime eschewed universal and compulsory education, and many Chinese schools remained private and unaided. Producing three different types of vernacular institutions, the state's partial incorporation of Chinese institutions unwittingly divided these schools and pre-empted them from forming a united, antagonistic identity. These findings urge us to examine carefully, when using Gramsci's concept of hegemony, the extent of compromise the powerful have actually conceded. They also hint that hegemony should not be conceived only as a conscious, conspiratorial project, for state practices occasioned by conjunctural forces may produce unintended consequences that have profound repercussions on political power.
[Copyright of British Journal of Sociology of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2012.674789]

Mathematics education in Hong Kong went through various stages of development under the period of British colonial rule for more than a century. Though modern ideas from the West were influential, they were blended with Chinese tradition and local pragmatism, and a localized mathematics curriculum was then eventually consolidated. This was a result of a careful striking of balance between laissez-faire and direct control. Looking back on such historical developments, one may gain insights into the issues induced by the current trend of managerialism and performativity.
[Copyright of British Society for the History of Mathematics. Bulletin is the property of Taylor & Francis. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2012.628480]

This study examines the influence of the colonial experience (1945-1997) on the planning of secondary technical education in Hong Kong. Specifically, the origins of secondary technical institutions and their positioning in secondary education are examined. Primary source materials are used as the basis of investigation and analysis, supplemented by secondary sources. The study finds that the origins and form of secondary technical education in Hong Kong mirrored those of secondary technical education in the British tripartite school system (grammar, technical, and modern). The breakdown of the tripartite school system in Britain might have led the colonial government not to adopt the full British model of secondary technical education. Nevertheless, the British tripartite school system had a long-term impact on the development of secondary technical schools in Hong Kong. Following the end of colonial rule, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government initiated education reform, which brought an end to curriculum differentiation by school types (grammar, technical, and prevocational) and replaced it with comprehensive education.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2011.561929]